Chapter Text
A few months later
Magnus drowned himself in chess, while Hikaru hid behind his streams. Nobody said a word, but everyone sensed that something was wrong.
One lost control over something he never thought he could lose. The other lost what he had been doing almost his entire life.
Stream after stream, interview after interview, Hikaru’s smile grew dimmer, his laughter faded from his face, and exhaustion took root, as if nothing could bring him joy or that old spark anymore.
Magnus began showing up at tournaments more often—almost at all of them. Just to silence the restless swarm of thoughts in his head. To stay away from endless checks of social media. To stop opening Hikaru’s streams, knowing the excuse “I’m just checking in, like an old friend” no longer worked. Knowing how long he lingered, watching the man on the screen. To stop scanning playing halls, knowing the familiar of dark hair would not appear.
He refused to admit to himself that this wasn’t just friendly concern. Their relationship could hardly be called friendship. For twenty years they had sat at the same tables, shaken hands, and played, again and again that's how it should have been.
Magnus never thought about how much he waited for that look, knowing Hikaru would find him. He never thought about how Hikaru’s laughter made his insides twist into a tight knot.
And even now he refused to admit that Hikaru’s absence made him drum pieces with nervous fingers before a game, tap out melodies during it. That he missed the smell of coffee that always followed the grandmaster—coffee Magnus now desperately craved desired
Magnus felt more and more exhausted by chess—or maybe he just refused to admit that without Hikaru, it no longer meant anything. He appeared at games only to keep up his image, not knowing how to escape his own personal hell.
Though he wasn’t the only one trapped in hell.
****
Obsessive thoughts echoed in Hikaru’s head.
“Maybe I should return to the game?”
“Maybe I should announce I’ve changed my mind?” But no—that would be meaningless. He hadn’t left chess just to crawl back a few months later.
And yet he felt things were going worse than he had ever imagined.
Sleepless nights, checking upcoming tournaments, replaying old games.
Sometimes even trying to replace the adrenaline with something else.
Once, in desperation, he went to a casino, made a few bets, but felt no fun at all.
Fatigue piled up, along with a craving for the ardor he once had. Now like an addict denied his dose—only his drug had been adrenaline rushing through his blood in play, surging through every part of him.
Now it had been gone for months. Hiding his frantic hunger for the game in routine, Hikaru was losing himself, not knowing what to do next.
Or maybe he just refused to admit that what he craved wasn’t only the game, but one “opponent,” who even after leaving would not release his heart.
****
Autumn. Outside, silence, and the night sky, hinting at morning only with a rounded yellow luminary. The cold air entered his lungs, sometimes as if freezing them.
The man walked slowly along the asphalt road — a small hint of approaching civilization.
Hikaru had never liked early risings and walks. But lately, they somehow helped him escape the feeling of blending into the gray mass of everyday life. As if he too was becoming that mass, losing himself in the flow of days very thing he had always feared.
A few meters later he stopped, found a bench under a tree, and sat down. Breathing heavily, feeling the cold air scorch his lungs, and in that pain—feeling at least somewhat alive.
For a few seconds, closing his eyes, disappearing into thoughts that hadn’t let him go for a long time.
“When did this begin?”
When did this obsessive idea of possession appear?
Hikaru didn’t know the answer to that question, though perhaps it was asked the wrong way. Instead of “When,” it should be “Why.”
Why did he feel the urge to play this twisted game of control with a man he never thought he would see this way?
He didn’t dare ask himself, though he already knew the true answer. Love, that feeling he thought he would never experience.
He leaned his head against the damp wood of the bench, wincing, falling deeper into his memories.
***
Maybe it was that puppy-eyed gaze, cast again and again, Magnus trailing after him like a pup after its owner?
Maybe it began the first time he truly saw Magnus as an opponent?
He remembered the day he first lost to him. The spinning desire for revenge—only to keep losing ever since.
Or maybe it was at that sponsor’s evening, when they both drank too much—Magnus especially, remembering nothing the next morning. But Hikaru remembered it all: the teeth very well, biting his skin, not hidden under his clothes; kisses traded again and again, as if trying to drink each other dry; hands, on their own bodie, exploring everything they could reach.
Maybe he should have pushed Magnus away then? Or maybe it wouldn’t have mattered? He would never know.
He could wander through the past forever, never finding what to do in the present.
*****
In his thoughts he drifted slowly into the desired sleep that insomnia had long denied him.
He woke abruptly, feeling warmth at his side that shouldn’t have been there.
A cat curled up at his side, warming itself on the open part of his jacket. Wet from the dew, with its body shaking from the morning cold, covered in dirt, although its striped coloring could be seen through it
Hikaru almost moved the bundle away, but froze for a moment. Seeing himself in it—lost, not knowing what was happening, or how to survive strange transformations. Just like now.
Breathing heavily, closing his eyes for a second, he finally decided to pick up the furry ball. Too much of him stared back at himself.